I'm a little nervous about client-side window decorations. One of the nice things about window-system controlled decorations is that updates in function, policy and style can be done unilaterally. I'm worried that few years after the Wayland transition there will be a cluster of ugly legacy apps that will never be upgraded and don't work right- think xmms, not Google Chrome.
Maybe it is me misunderstanding things, but Wayland and X11 are not technologies in contrast with each other.<p>Wayland is a glorified and up-to-date framebuffer and input system, X11 is a library that draws shapes and is responsible for delivering input from the user to the correct application.<p>I think the current situation is confusing because current X11 implementations not only do what X11 is meant to do, but they also need a way to push pixels to the framebuffer and listen to keystrokes. Basically X servers needed their own way to talk to the graphic card and they implemented it (decades ago). That part is almost completely independent from the protocol that draws shapes and routes input to applications. What Wayland is replacing is _that_ part, the part that deals with the framebuffer (that in the modern times is no longer a simple strip of memory region with RGB pixel data).<p>In the end we will have Wayland as the only owner of the graphic device and many clients, one of which will be the X server. When they say "client-side decoration" they are referring to the status quo: the Wayland client called X11 will draw the decorations (asking the WM to do that); nothing different from what we have now.<p>Once Wayland will be stable there will be other direct clients that will want to bypass X11: games probably, but also other multi-platform toolkit like Qt. And X12, eventually ;)<p>To me Wayland looks as the perfect example of how to move forward: make older unsustainable technologies coexist with newer technologies.
Single page version for those who would prefer to read one large page instead of three split up pages:<p><a href="http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Wayland-Beyond-X-1432046.html?view=print" rel="nofollow">http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Wayland-Beyond-X-14320...</a>
I felt that the words like 'legacy' and 'dated' were a tad overused, and the article felt biased. A particular example was how X's protocols were described as "complex, asynchronous", contrasted with Wayland's "violently asynchronous" protocols !<p>It's always thrilling to have a blank slate, and you have a euphoric feeling that <i>this</i> time, we're going to get it right. But there are the essential complexities of any problem, and I would say that for the end user, X has delivered in spades. It will be interesting to hear developers reactions to a battle-tested Wayland code base 5 years from now.
I went to a talk about Wayland at FOSDEM. What was most interesting was that <i>everything they are trying to solve has already been solved by X</i>. Furthermore, the only possible benefit of Wayland (rotating windows in non 90 degree amounts) is basically a bug, not a feature.<p>Then there's the lack of network support.<p>If this is pushed on Linux users, expect forking of distributions.
One of my hats is 'system administrator'. I like X a lot more than VNC/RDP. I don't run linux on my desktop and don't really care about performance there.<p>I'm not looking forward to the day when X is gone. Being able to fire up system-config-* on a remote system is awesome.
It's nice that there is still interesting development work being done in this field. This approach certainly seems like a step forward. Kernel Mode Setting is noticeably faster and has better power saving abilities than previous approaches but is cannot be fully taken advantage of by X.<p>There is an experimental port to Arch if anyone want to give it a spin (<a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wayland" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wayland</a>).
The real problem, and confusion in this discussion is because X11 is a loaded concept and when people talk about Wayland they dont seem to understand what part of X11 wayland is supposed to replace.<p>X11 meanings:<p>- X11 protocol: Allows remote applications.<p>- X11 server: Controlling applications and redirect input and such.<p>- X11 drivers: Controlling hadware.<p>As i understand it, Wayland is supposed to replace X11 drivers and parts of X11 server. Apparently you can still use the X11 protocol on top of Wayland if you want.<p>Theres a good FAQ about it: <a href="http://wayland.freedesktop.org/faq.html" rel="nofollow">http://wayland.freedesktop.org/faq.html</a>
While many of the changes that Wayland is making seem like improvements, I would really miss server side window decoration if it were to go away. Perhaps a nice way forward would be to have, instead of X on Wayland, another lighter weight server between Wayland and the applications? I suppose this would be very analogous to current window managers.
I get the feeling this will go the way of Plan 9 i.e. its only flaw is that it was trying to replace something very entrenched that was "good enough".<p>I really like Wayland and would like to see it succeed though.